


A Collection of Lovely Possibilities

by jujubiest



Series: Destiny [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dean Winchester is an exceptionally stubborn fucker but we love him, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, The Winchester family is happy and healthy and loving, shared POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 05:18:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11306463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: It's possible this is how the rest of Dean and Cas's life begins.





	A Collection of Lovely Possibilities

**Author's Note:**

> For all the lovely people in the comments who asked for more.
> 
> I do have some additional ideas on where I could go from here, but nothing concrete, so...no promises! But...we all know by now that I don't know when to quit, I think.
> 
> Completely unbeta'd once again, except for a couple of readthroughs I did myself.

It's possible they end up kissing on the sidewalk outside Harvelle's.

Dean is never sure, afterward, who moved first. He remembers the chill in the air, the dark, heavy cast to the clouds overhead, and the way the muted, blue-tinged light made everything about Cas stand out in hard lines and sharp contrasts against the soft gray scenery of the little town square. He remembers the wary set of Cas's shoulders, and the way his face changed and opened up, little by little, as Dean said his piece. He remembers seeing confusion, pain, anger, fear, hope, all shift across Cas's features in the span of a couple of minutes.

But he doesn't know how Cas went from staring him down at a safe distance to being suddenly right there, in his arms. He doesn't have the space to evaluate the situation in that moment, or any desire to create it; he just grabs on and holds tight, closes his eyes and loses himself to the feeling: hands clutching at his jacket to pull him closer, the press and slide of and lips and tongue, Cas's warm breath in his ear as he pulls away just long enough to whisper, "I _missed_ you, you _colossal_ ass."

Dean laughs and nods because yeah, he deserves that, before pulling Cas in again.

“I missed you, too,” he breathes against Cas’s lips between kisses.

They stay close even when their teeth are chattering too hard from the cold to continue kissing, just sharing breath and warmth and space. Only finally pulling apart at the cacophony of wolf whistles coming from the other side of the restaurant's front window, followed by someone--it sounds like Dean's old buddy, Garth--yelling "get it, Winchester!"

They rejoin their friends with flushed faces and bright eyes, but continue grinning at one another across the table until Cas's friend Meg declares them disgusting and makes Dean switch seats with her, "so at least I won't keep getting caught in the crossfire when the two of you are making cow eyes at each other."

* * *

It's possible Cas follows Dean back to the old Winchester homestead, where he is immediately set upon by Dean's delighted parents.

The hug John and Mary envelop him in feels like coming home at last after a long, hard journey. He closes his eyes and relaxes into it with a relieved exhale, and thinks he feels Mary's smile against his cheek. John pulls back just enough to ruffle his hair and grumbles good-naturedly about third sons who don't call, don't write, and Cas has to blink several times to keep his eyes from overflowing.

When they finally let him go he's sure his eyes are suspiciously shiny anyway, but before he can make an excuse to turn or retreat so he can hide the evidence, he's pulled into another, even fiercer hug by a ridiculously tall, gangly man that cannot possibly be Sam Winchester, except that his ear-to-ear grin is just as friendly and open and goofy as Castiel remembers.

They stay up into the wee hours of the morning, crowded around the Winchesters' tiny kitchen table with cups of coffee and slices of Mary's apple pie, just catching up. And there is a lot to catch up on.

Castiel hasn't seen the Winchesters regularly since he moved away a few years ago, and very seldom before that. He’s felt bad ever since, about just cutting them out of his life the way he had, but it wasn’t ever intentional. At first, he’d tried to come by for a visit every time he drove to town to see his own parents. But he found that he was always on edge, worried he would run into Dean...and aside from that, even with Dean nowhere to be found, they still reminded Castiel of him. Seeing them had hurt almost as much as _not_ seeing him.

He doesn't say any of this, but he hopes they know.

He also hopes they realize he doesn’t plan to just disappear on them again.

When Mary's eyes zero in on the way Dean's thumb keeps brushing back and forth over Cas's shoulder, the wistful little edge to her smile melts away, and shoots a smug smile at John that makes Cas think maybe she does know…maybe she always did.

When they finally talk themselves out for the night, Dean leads Cas by the hand up to his old room, and they fall exhausted into the double bed. It’s too small for two adults to share and have any kind of personal space, but really…Cas is okay with that.

If the way Dean wraps around him like an octopus is any indication, he’s just fine with it, too. They lay awake like that for a little while, Dean’s front pressed to Cas’s back, until Cas can’t take not _seeing_ Dean anymore and has to turn over.

A part of him still barely believes that any of this is real. He needs Dean’s face in front of him, needs that soft certainty he’d seen in Dean’s eyes outside Harvelle’s.

They fall asleep like that, face to face, noses nearly touching.

* * *

It's possible that the next morning there are pictures of their “epic reunion kiss” plastered all over Instagram and Facebook, tagged with things like #BetterLateThanNever and #FuckingFINALLY.

These are soon joined by a photo Sam must have snapped before they woke up that morning, of Dean curled on his side, drooling into his pillow with Cas sprawled half over him and half off the bed, doing a sleeping imitation of a starfish across the too-small bed.

Dean sends several all-caps texts to everyone who was at Harvelle’s, but only gets a winky-face and a heart from the owner’s daughter, Jo, in response. Cas glares severely at Sam until he takes the sleeping photo down, but by then it’s been shared so many times that this does very little good.

Mary saves a copy of each photo while her kids aren’t looking, fully intending to print them out later for the family album.

* * *

It's possible they spend the rest of their holiday break just enjoying each other’s company, feeling out this new, fragile-seeming thing between them without having any of the hard conversations they both know will have to come eventually.

Dean, of course, has always been good at avoiding talking about anything that makes him uncomfortable. But Castiel has perfected the art of avoiding this particular topic—Dean, and all things Dean-adjacent)—over the last twenty years. He brings these skills to bear full-force on the questions that are beating down the doors in his mind…no small feat, considering he’s spending every waking minute—and most of his sleeping ones—attached at the hip to the subject and cause of said questions. They’re both determined, it seems, not to mar the first days of this unexpected reunion with the potential fallout that conversation could bring.

Castiel spends a little time at his parents' house toward the end of his stay, feeling bad for neglecting them in favor of Dean and his family. He loves his parents, and he knows they love him. But they’ve always seemed like vaguely affectionate strangers to him, people who love to share things with him but don’t know how to be _parents_ , exactly. It made his childhood interesting, but…severely lacking in the warmth he’d always felt around Dean’s family.

That sense of…love, safety, _something_ —had been almost as hard to lose as Dean himself. Now that Castiel has it back, he’s reveling in it.

But he knows his mother in particular will be disappointed if he doesn’t at least stop by a couple of times before he leaves, so he spends two of his last three days in Kansas in his parents’ quiet, pristine, stylish house on the other side of town, listening to his father ramble excited about his latest writing project, his mother interjecting here and there with details his father is forgetting.

It’s good to see them. It is. And before he leaves on the second day, his mother pulls him aside and gives him the tightest hug her spindly little arms can manage.

"You're happier than I've seen you in a long time," she murmurs softly into his hair. "Whatever has done it, hold onto that. My boy deserves all the happiness life can offer."

He hugs his mother as hard as he dares; she’s always seemed so fragile, even when he was a kid.

“Thanks, Mom,” he whispers, and resolves to come and see her more often.

* * *

It's possible that last day arrives far too soon. It dawns with Castiel in knots, afraid to broach the subject himself but worried that if he doesn’t, they’ll part ways again with nothing said, and drift apart this time under the slow, excruciating weight of an unbreached distance.

Dean pulls him extra close that morning, dragging slow, careful fingers through his bed-mussed hair until Cas is almost ready to fall asleep again, lulled by Dean's ministrations and the rhythm of his heartbeat against Cas’s ear.

Before he can drop off completely, though, Dean says the words that chase all thought of sleep from his mind.

"Okay, Cas. What do we do now?"


End file.
